The Edinburgh College of Art is getting ready for this year’s fashion show which will take place later this week.

This year’s runway show will feature designs from students graduating in Fashion, Performance Costume and Textiles. The Edinburgh College of Art Fashion Show is Scotland’s leading fashion event and one of the capital’s cultural highlights.

This week’s event promises to be bigger and better than ever before, with 20 collections featuring a diverse range of designs inspired by lost Peruvian tribes, 1990s kids TV shows, the sleek shapes of luxury yachts, and the power of the colour blue.

The Fashion Show will take place on Thursday 25th April and Friday 26th April, in the University of Edinburgh’s McEwan Hall. There will be one Schools performance and five public performances.

For anyone interested in attending the Fashion Show, there are still tickets available online for £15.

A new iPhone application has been launched that aims to help women choose the clothes they should wear. “Body Shape” by Diva Dressing, is available on the Apple AppStore for £5.49. It says it will give a clear depiction of what clothes suit them based on their body shape.

Sally Inkster, the owner of Dressing Diva says, “Beauty only shows through when women are confident.”

“The way to achieve self-confidence is to wear an outfit that truly compliments your body shape”.

It works by women inputting their vital statistics such as height and hip measurements. Once these are recorded it calculates what clothes they should wear and which to avoid.

It is being dubbed ‘the style guide for your pocket’. It is continuing the debate on the amount people are relying on technology. This comes in the wake of a report over the weekend that mums are spending too much time on social network sites and not with their children.

Dr Martens where originally introduced to the working class of Britain in 1960. Celeste Carrigan looks back over a half-century of a piece of iconic fashion….

Dr Martens Logo : Sourced Dr Martens

The iconic cult classic piece of fashion Dr Martens turned 50 years old this year in April. The boot has forever remained the shoe of choice for subcultures and looks to be with us for another 50 years. The tough looking, hardworking work boots are an emblem of British fashion. They have been on a journey of freedom, individuality and empowerment. [Read more…]

Sarah Jessica Parker to have own virtual shop on Google's new fashion site

Internet search engine giant Google, will this Wednesday delve into the fashion business by a launching a new website, believed to be called boutiques.com.

The fashion industry is the fourth largest industry globally, with revenues cautiously estimated at £310 billion worldwide. It is believed to be worth £37 billion in the UK alone, meaning this has the potential to be a very lucrative move for Google.

The fashion industry publication Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), reports that Google is not planning to sell directly to clients itself, instead the website will direct users towards already established retailers such as Asos.

The site will feature a live data feed from its retail partners, allowing pictures to appear and making the site look like a high end boutique rather than a search results page.

Fashion designers such as Tory Birch and Oscar de la Renta have been hired to set up there own virtual shops within the site, along with Sarah Jessica Parker, Katie Holmes and various other celebrities.

Users will be encouraged to establish profiles, in which they will add their preferences, and will hence be easier to successfully target with selective advertising and marketing efforts.

Google is not alone in trying to tap the fashion market; ebay recently launched fashion specific areas, although it is doubtful that this will have the same appeal to advertisers as Google’s effort.

Traditionally, there are items that do not sell well online, such as high end fashion, top quality jewelery and antiques, but this is clearly changing.

But just how much sophisticated consumers of art or fashion are willing to buy online remains unclear. As one fashion executive told WWD: “It’s incumbent upon us to be open to and explore new areas. In the business sense, the bricks-and-mortar business is not growing by leaps and bounds. It’s become more of a market share question.”

The final day of the Paris Fashion Week has arrived! After a full ten days of catwalks, designers, models, and after parties, the time has come to leave the city of lights and reflect on the new trends that will invade our wardrobes next Spring.

The event kicked off on the 29th of September and the all big names of the fashion industry were there. All main French, as well as international designers showcased their latest work in spectacular shows. The main stages included shows by classical French houses Chanel, Dior, Yves St Laurent and Balmain among others and Vuitton and Hermes still to come.

The shows in themselves were flamboyant and managed to give the audience a taste of what is to come for the coming season. Although this winter, the mood is dark in the fashion world, it is set to brighten up in the Spring with a big colour comeback.

A creation by Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin as part of his Spring/Summer 2011 women's ready-to-wear fashion collection during Paris Fashion Week October 6, 2010.

Orange and peach will come into our closets as a natural shift from the nude shades we experienced last summer. Block colours as well as prints will create an outburst of change in our sombre winter styles, as seen in Galliano and Elie Saab’s collections. All these trends are equally reflected in the traditional Alexander McQueen style reflecting his team’s tribute and keeping his legacy alive.

Of course, Fashion Week would not be itself without the traditional after parties and Lagerfeld playing host on more than one occasion. He hosted several extravaganzas, including one to celebrate his collaboration with Hogan and another one for the launch of Fendi’s new fragrance. These were a huge success and all the bold and beautiful people were there. A detailed account of the gossip and the full shows can be seen on the vogue website!

Now that it is all coming to an end, it is time to celebrate one last time in the name of fashion and wish all the designers luck to give us as good a Fashion Week next season.

A local college is running a competition to find the face of a new range of size 16+ clothes for women.

Stevenson College Edinburgh in conjunction with Argentinian plus size retailer Portofem, are running a fashion shoot competition for their photography students .

As well as giving students valuable experience, the competition hopes to promote a more positive body image for women of all sizes in line with Portofems motto: “Beauty is not a matter of size but of attitude.”

Hilary Stevens, Portofems UK representative, said: “We had the idea after the owner’s daughter attended the college and remarked on how professional the photography student’s work was. We will be running this competition in other colleges to help promote the idea that big can be beautiful.”

Katherines photo

Protofem was founded in 1992 as a specialist supplier in larger womens fashion and will be opening stores throughout Britain in the coming year.

Katherine Tully, one of the models in the competition said: “Myself and my sister applied for a bit of fun and I ended up being picked.

“After seeing the shots I was really pleased, it boosted my confidence and shows that curvy girls can be sexy too.Its important that bigger ladies can see that its okay to be big .”

The winner of the competition will feature in Protofems new clothes brouchure and all the competitors will take part in a fashion show at the college later this month.

The fashion store has teamed up with Prince’s Trust celebrity ambassadors, Alesha Dixon, Pixie Lott, Kelly Rowland and male band Kid British to create a t-shirt collection to raise money for The Prince’s Trust Charity.

The collection has been designed by River Island’s young designers with the ambassadors in mind and is aimed to reflect the stars personal style. The collection consists of three t-shirt dresses for women and four t-shirts for men.

T's for Trust: Celebrity dresses.

The t-shirt dresses for women reflect an array of styles and are sure to be on every woman’s wish list for the festive party season.

Alesha Dixon’s t-shirt dress is full of bright colours and sparkle. The dress is covered in purple sequins and has beautiful purple and pastel yellow coloured floral motifs at the top of the dress on either side.

Alesha loves the bright colour of the dress and its versatility, as she says, “You can wear my tee with shorts, you can wear it with leggings or you can wear it as a dress. It’s got flowers which I absolutely adore and lots of colour.”

From bright colours to bright print, Pixie Lott’s dress is a zebra print number with a touch of punk rock chick to it with studs on either shoulder and also features this seasons key trend of fringing, draped from either shoulder.

Pixie says “I love the t-shirt dress River Island created for me, I think it’s really cool – the lengths perfect the fringing wicked and i love both the print and the black version. It’s great that this is being sold in River Island and will hopefully raise lots of money for The Prince’s Trust.” The dress is also available in black and is set to be a best-seller.

The design created for Kelly Rowland echoes a glamourous, sophisticated look and is certainly the most extravagant with the price at £99.99. The dress is one- shouldered and covered in gorgeous crystals and diamontes.

The starlet says, “All of the lovely, sequins, trinkets and diamontes on this dress remind me of being on stage and that’s what I love. It’s very fitted , just how I like my clothes to be. I love what The Prince’s Trust does and I’m excited that River Island and The Prince’s Trust have come together for this great cause.”

All the T’s for Trust designs are available in selected River Island stores from tomorrow.

The Prince’s Trust is a registered charity that gives practical and financial support to 14-30 year olds that have struggled at school, been in care , are long-term unemployed or have been in trouble with the law.

The Prince’s Trust is extremely happy to be working with River Island.

Geraldine Gammell, Director of The Prince’s Trust in Scotland said, “The new range being introduced at River Island is a fantastic way to highlight the work of The Prince’s Trust. The T-shirts are an ideal way for individuals to help support the charity and make a lasting difference to the lives of young people throughout the country. The designs from our ambassador’s are fresh and vibrant, perfect for the festive season and I’m sure will prove hugely popular.”

The Prince’s Trust has helped more than 600,000 young people since 1976.

Edinburgh College of Art‘s (ECA) fashion show is usually a sell-out. It has been running for more than fifty years and is a key date in the capital’s art calendar.

It takes place at the college on 6-8th May this year. One of the key parts of the show is the work of the graduating students on performance costumes. The college held a photo shoot at the National Gallery to showcase some of these wonderful costumes. I went along for Edinburgh Napier News and was struck by both the workmanship and the attention to detail.

The costumes on show were for Pierette from The Affair at Victory Ball by Agatha Christie by Rebecca Hywel-Jones, for Susanna from the Marriage of Figaro by Peggy Jones, for The Duchess from the Duchess of Malfi by local Edinburgh girl Emily Raemaekers and for Pamina from the operetta The Magic Flute by Eleanor Welch.

Tickets for the show are £15 and will likely be snapped up quickly. They are available from The Hub.

Other than the performance costumes we are told that, “The catwalk, as ever, will be fast and furious. On-trend, but always a little bit ‘out there’, ECA Fashion Show 2009 will feature edgy, sculptural designs, sexy, grown-up womenswear, and the kind of one-off, craft-based pieces that London buyers are currently clamouring for.

“ECA Fashion Show 2009 will present the final collections of students graduating in Fashion and Performance Costume, as well as collaborative projects with the Textiles department. These will be shown alongside the mini-collections of 2nd and 3rd Year students.

Edinburgh College of Art has an international reputation as one of the most successful independent art colleges in the UK. The College is known for its creativity, its co-operative atmosphere and its people – one recent graduate described the College as ‘an ideas factory’.

Amongst the dreary depths of the current economic climate, many retailers are facing millions of pounds worth of losses as consumers watch their pennies. Asos, an online fashion website, however, has managed to defy the problems surrounding the credit crunch with profits of 104 percent in the six months leading upto September.

Asos, originally known as As Seen On Screen was founded by Nick Robertson in 2000. ASOS was never intended to be a fashion website and, primarily, sold celebrity- inspired products such as the diary room chairs in Big Brother. In time, Robertson discovered that fashion was his fastest performing sector on his website and in 2004, Asos stopped selling non-fashion items.

Whilst it was still on baby feet, Robertson realised that magazines such as Heat used fashion as a means to celebrate the easy access for readers to be like their celebrity icons at reasonable prices. Magazines like Heat, however, were not necessarily considering readers that were students or on a minimum wage. In 2006, Robertson decided to provide his own high street range aimed at 16-34 year olds and the success of the brand was phenomenal.

Robertson said: ”It’s a different animal to what we ever thought it might be.’

Although phrases like, ‘in the style of…’ are used, Asos is very proactive about promoting fashion rather than celebrity. Asos accounts for 60 percent of its womanswear whilst the rest is stocked by high street and label brands such as Karen Millen and Lipsy mirroring the image of a department store like Selfridges.

Fashion now matches big spend with cheap buys. Now, there is an opportunity to buy more for less- a vision accepted by the fashion conscious yet cautious spender. For the young and computer literate, this is the best means to shop particularly when there are so many personal commitments such as families, a career and possible an education.

Due to the easy access to the internet, Asos has provided a new way to shop. Gone are the days of driving round car parks or city centres for a parking space, the inconvenience of carrying bags of purchases whilst watching restless children. Shopping can now be done in the comfort of your home, at work or even, sneakily, during class.